Running track · free to participants

Cloud and identity

Learn how organizations run services in the cloud and control who can sign in to them, on live systems with real users.

What this track covers

Every service an organization runs, in the cloud or on its own servers, has to decide who is allowed in and what they can do once they are there. This track teaches how those services are run and how those decisions are made and enforced.

• Cloud fundamentals: How cloud services are organized, how resources are set up in them, and how they are secured.
• Identity and access management: Accounts, groups, roles and permissions, and the decisions behind who can reach what.
• Single sign-on: Letting one account sign a person in to many services, and what has to be true for that to be safe.
• Directory services: The record of people, groups and devices that other systems check before they let anyone in.
• Virtualization: Running servers and desktops as virtual machines, and managing them through their whole life.

The systems you work on

Every CCA service has real people signing in to it, so the accounts and permissions in this track matter.

• the identity platform that signs participants and staff in to CCA services with a single account
• the roles and permissions behind each CCA application, which decide what each person can see and change
• live cloud tenants and the dashboards used to run them
• the virtualization platform that runs CCA’s virtual machines, including the workspaces assigned to participants

Sign-ins, failed sign-ins, multi-factor challenges and permission denials on our platform are all logged. When something about access goes wrong, that record is usually the first place to look.

Where it leads

The track prepares participants for identity and cloud operations roles, platform support work, and recognized cloud certifications. These are jobs where a lot of the work is making sure the right people have the right access, and fixing it quickly when they do not.

CCA can pay for your cloud certification exam when you are ready for it. Staff also help with the job search itself, from tailoring applications to looking over an offer before you accept it.

Read how CCA works, step by step

What donors fund in this track

Hosting and cloud credits are used up every month a participant is learning, so this track depends on steady monthly gifts.

$10 a month

Keeps one participant’s cloud environment running

$25

Provides cloud access for one participant

$100,000

Covers a year of hosting for the systems every CCA program runs on

Gifts can be restricted to the cloud and identity track. Mention it when you give, and we will report back on what your gift paid for.

Questions about this track

Do I need cloud experience to start?

No. Enrolling does not require any experience with cloud services or identity systems. You need someone to sponsor you, or approval from our board, and a way to get online.

Do I have to pay for my own cloud account?

No. Hosting and cloud access are paid for by donors, which is why a $10 monthly gift is enough to keep one participant’s environment running.

Why are cloud and identity taught together?

Because the two are hard to separate at work. Moving a service to the cloud means deciding who can reach it, and cloud services rely on an identity system to make that decision.

Keep a participant’s environment running

Cloud costs arrive every month. A monthly gift of $10 covers one participant’s environment for as long as you keep giving.